


a moth ate through your favourite shirt

by tnevmucric



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Pedophilia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 21:25:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15300333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnevmucric/pseuds/tnevmucric
Summary: things close to you are being destroyed and you can't do one thing about it





	a moth ate through your favourite shirt

It takes the soil crumbling over his head for him to realise it's over.

"I'm not in love with you anymore", he says plainly, and there may as well have been a gaping hole under his chin and through to the crown of his head because she starts crying. Like it all even mattered to begin with. _I want to hurt you_ , he almost bites. _Don't you get it?_

"How long?", snot collects in her nose and she noisily wipes it away, causing him to gag. "Or did you never love me to begin with? What am I supposed to do?"

"You're not my problem, please go." The shock of the sting is anything but. It's more like she'd thrown rotting fruit in his eyes seasoned with clipped, sharp toenails. Her smile, which had been a charming thing, was now reduced to mucus and yellowing teeth. "Seriously, leave. I don't want to ask again."

 _I want to tear your fucking throat out_ , he thinks rigidly. _I want to watch you bleed out on my carpet. I want to rip the flesh from your bones so don't come any closer or I will._

She left as she had entered four months prior; with smell of a rotting carcass in his kitchen similar to an airborn disease. Subconsciously, he reaches for his lighter and incense sticks while dialling into his phone with one hand. It only rings twice.

"Busy tonight?", he asks, cupping the phone between his ear and shoulder while he lit the thin Jasmine sticks. "I got rid of Emma."

"So soon?", there's a crinkling sound on the other end of the line that he can only relate to the raising of eyebrows and disbelief. "I thought you liked her."

"I like you more. Wanna come over and watch some shit T.V.? I bought your favourite drink."

" _Tyler_ ", he laughs into the headset, "You should be mourning the loss of your girlfriend."

" _Josh_ ", Tyler stresses, grinning ear to ear as he cracked open two cans and set them on the breakfast bar, "You should be on my couch, like, twenty minutes ago."

Sometimes, Josh thought, Tyler could be ill-looking with an undesirable and depraved smile. Fake charisma would gleam his teeth and he'd speak as if he were in 1883; reading _En Folkefiende_ aloud with a simpering grin. _The truth is too expensive_ , he'd murmur, and men would eat from his very fingertips. But at 9:23's with rain on the window glass, Gabriel Black on T.V. and Tyler's pink socks on his feet, it could be incredibly sweet. Tyler wriggled his toes in Josh's lap and tilted his head to lean on his hand: smiling.

 _Crocodile teeth_ , Josh thinks. _Crocodiles have 24 sharp teeth which are used for killing fish, birds, mammals and small crocodile. Crocodiles don't chew their food. They tear apart the flesh and swallow large chunks of meat._ But there is always something insidiously elegant between them and the temper of their footsteps; like the balance in their bodies, the rhythmic thumping, had been sculpted by Bach harmoniously. Each note and each quiver would remind Josh of how messy and corrosive they could both really be, sometimes lacking insight onto how to engage with oneself and losing control too easily. Tyler drags his legs away, moving forward on the leather.

"Turn around?"

Tyler's legs soon nestle somewhat uncomfortably around Josh's hips but it is disgustingly easy for his body to relax as the familiar, soft fingers begin to weave through his hair: over and under, over and under. _A braid_ , Josh's brain supplies (also referred to as a plait), _is a complex structure or pattern formed by interlacing three or more strands of flexible material such as textile yarns, wire, or hair._ Josh realised his hair had gotten a little thick since he decided to stop dyeing it but he never realised it was _that_ long.

From where they sit, the streetlight just sits just above his left eye. And despite the gentleness of the situation, everything hurt. So he keeps his eyes squeezed shut, following the easy attraction that comes in allowing oneself to get lost in affectionate ministrations. Outside, the moonrise doesn't pause even for the rushing passerby, desperate to catch the last running buses into the city. He could have been one of them, some time ago. If he scrunched his face hard enough, past their ghostly faces, he could see the sun rolling off of his hands like beaded sweat as he ran under the shade of trees and his heavy headache. The seven minute warmth.

Tyler finds a stray curl of his fringe and tucks it into the intricate mess. He picks the rhythm back up with an ease that is fatally soothing: a critical hit. 100% damage.

In his face, his smile, Josh can always see kindness.

"Hair tie."

Tyler holds out his wrist and, somewhat stiffly, Josh snaps the elastic off and hands it back; feeling the familar twist of it bind the ends of his hair together. The weightless and careless feeling of fog refuses to settle in and he closes his eyes: _it's better this way,_ he thinks. He can focus, stay aware: he can catch his mouth before it drips from the sky in columns of black and blue.

"Josh?", there's a touch to his elbow. "Is it too tight?"

Josh's eyes peel open to the rain-spotted window and he shakes his head. Whether it be by fate or whimsy (or his friend's acute intentions), their hands slide together and Josh squeezes. Tyler touches his forehead to the base of his neck and squeezes back.

"It's okay, thank you." Somehow, the room brightens far more than a notch directly behind him at the sign of small praise.

"Good. I'm glad."

 _I'm glad_. Josh tilts his head so the streetlight shine hits his eye. It files a remembrance onto his cornea: _stay sharp, stay sharp. Be honest._

A hand folds over his line of sight.

"Tyler",he warns. It only fuels the soft laughter in his ear.

"Relax", Tyler removes the hand, nudging Josh to turn around, "don't overthink this."

 _But what is this?_ Josh wants to ask. He feels as though he's stuck in the eternal torment of one's own first relationship; he is a fourteen-year-old in need of constant reassurance and care. He would rather do anything than share his feelings, but he can't help but divulge everything to his best friend. His best friend and his deadly teeth.

He almost swears.

Tyler is woven into the room for lack of a better word. His smell, his touch, his belongings and the taste of him in the air irritates each allergy and sensitivity Josh has. It's too comforting too fast. The lull he feels is not too dissimilar to ocean waves.

"Good", Tyler murmurs and something in Josh wants to snap: _what power do you have over me?_ But the fog already snakes his ankles and clogs his hearing; it travels his throat and buries in his chest like a dying parasite. "You're doing so good."

 _Good_ , Josh tries. He's doing _good_. It's in moments like these he is cursed with a one-track mind, slowly unravelling in the hidden corner of Tyler's apartment, beneath a body that smells like coffee and deodorant and for only the moon to see.

There are words, somewhere. He can't remember the syllables, his feet are too cold and his eyes feel so heavy. Tyler noses his neck, fingers running back and forth over his arm, their legs locked together in a disgustingly sweet position. Josh's muscles uncoil and his cheek rests on Tyler's chest. His week was often like a bingo board, except instead of numbers it would be _bad things that could go wrong._ This wasn't any of those things.

The deathly blue glow of Tyler's phone pierced through the tranquility of the room. A single name in block letters occupied the screen (it creates a heavy, pregnant pause. It burns Josh's chest) and the call dials out. The city is still. The room is frozen.

"Stay the night", Tyler says finally.

"Yeah." Tyler bundles the more muscular man in his arms too quickly and too harshly at the sound of his answer: breaking the fog that tried to sink into Josh's bloodstream. "Of course."

You can have any kind of thought and if the external conditions did not go as you thought or planned, you can find yourself in a state of stress or mild anxiety. If the situation goes as per your mental diagram, you will feel happy or joyful.

It is your thoughts going _for_ or _against_ you, they're both to learn, so whenever either finds themself in dire situations (as of recent days) they are reminded to just remember that whatever thought of theirs has gone against them, peace is around a corner they just have to find.

 _Tyler_ , Josh thinks, tightening his grip on the arms that encircled the top half of his body. _Tyler is around the corner._

"It makes me feel smaller when you do this", Josh mumbles unintelligibly. "Like- like... I don't know. I don't know."

The moon has no heartbeat this July night.

The texture of Josh's skin is a familar and pleasant feeling, to Tyler. Though the glass of the window radiates the longing intensity of predestination, Josh is filled with a soft reminder of sincerity and hope. Genuinity. Home. A place where vulnerability doesn't have to be managed with a knife.

"Tyler?"

His fingers tremble in something that could have been trepidation moments ago, but that which is now fear. Shakily, he drags Josh's hands over his own eyes: the darkness isn't as comforting as it should have been.

Their friendship is an ugly, distorted thing. Monet's impressionism, if you liked the fine details that weren't there. A year ago he dreamed of the sunrise.

"What does it matter?",he asks wearily (weakly, but he'd never admit it). "I'm exhausted all the time, now. I feel like I'm-"

_Drowning. But I'm not sinking underwater, I'm standing in the shower and the water is like rain and it's filling my body past the suggested 70%._

Josh's hands tense and Tyler is reminded of where he is.

"More often than not", Tyler begins, "I want to kill God and I want to hurt him _so bad_ that he has no choice but to fucking pay attention. I want to hurt him so bad that he listens and realises he needs to kill all of the fucking _rapists_ and the _pedophiles_ and all of the fucking _abusers_. And if he had nails I'd rip them off because he hasn't been doing his _fucking_ job."

Something gets caught in Tyler Joseph's throat.

"It's the least he deserves."

For a brief moment, he worries Josh is gone. Physically it is a stupid thought- he can feel Josh's hands on his face, after all. But they've gone slack. They slide off easily and Tyler wants to slip into that foggy unconsciousness he tries to coax into Josh's stressed shoulders: the vast black that swallows a person whole with rectangular remnants of star-like lights fading effortlessly from vision... But he doesn't, not really. If anything, he wants the courage to open his eyes.

Josh's tongue tastes of cloth and lavender. Like during the embalming period his death reeked so bad that the mortician had dropped some essential oils down his throat- it is addictive. He forces himself closer, fingers tangling in the terrible attempt of a braid on the back of Josh's head.

 _You've got those vindictive eyes_ , Tyler thinks desperately, watching a string of spit split between them as they breathed each other's air: completely together and stumbling all at once. He could feel his knees almost dig into his friend's soft thighs; _what do they mean?_

"Talk to me." Tyler slumps his shoulders and tries to hide in Josh's chest. "Talk to me."

"Neither of us are good with small talk", Josh tries to joke and Tyler breathes: _he is something so special._

"I want to have you like this more", Josh then admits, something akin to embarrassment in his eyes. "Not just... trusting me, but _here_. In my arms. You should let me take care of you, sometimes. That's the least you deserve."

Tyler feels Josh's fingers squeeze his hip; tight enough to hold his tongue but without so much intensity that they both might bleed. A lone taxi makes its rounds nearby.

"I...", Tyler can only hear blood pumping in his ears and the silent scratching that life leaves within a body. It is like Death saying _'Live, I am coming.'_ "In nature", he starts, "everything is vitally connected. Nothing is isolated because everything is in connection with something which is in connection with something else and so on."

The rest might be in fog.

"I feel disconnected", he admits, "I feel like I've lost something important but I feel like I always get it back when I'm with you."

His gaze glues to the ground. He is reminded of the way they share a bed; Tyler on the left, Josh on the right, the blankets come up to their shoulders and there's lack of breathing space.

"Does it bother you?", Josh asks gently, "Knowing that you're missing something?"

"Yes", Tyler almost cries, his whole body clenching. "It makes me feel like I have to be something that I'm not. I feel like all I can do is _act_ and create _bullshit_ from these situations rather than trying to live. I feel like I'm not alive and everything around me is so violent and I am _so, so_ scared."

A moment passes, and then another. Life seems to be in constant state of zemblanity for them. Josh touches his neck, first, and his grip on Tyler's hip tightens further.

 _If he holds on too hard,_ Tyler thinks, _will I break him apart?_

 _I'm hesitant to tell you_ , Josh thinks, _that I choose this life and every part of you with it._

Both of Tyler's hands, skinless and fleshless, seem intent on entering Josh's chest with a mechanical nature; _digging, digging, digging_ until he can reach the very confines of the other's heart and own it. They press into each other's space and steal seconds of time so carelessly.

"Sometimes I can't believe how much I hate or how scared I can get", Tyler says, "Do you see me leaving you?"

 _No_ , Josh's brain breathes. _Never_.

"No", he answers.

 _To those who have shaped my character_ , Josh thinks, _to those who have shaped his character, it would mean you have dually nourished and abolished our souls._ Tyler's heart thumps alive. _I hope you are happy. I hope you aren't at peace._

Tyler stares at Josh; hollow eyed and instantly unforgettable.

"I care about you", he says. "A lot. A lot more than you know, Josh."

He considers my words with his lips faintly pressed into a smile. There's always been something unwilling in Tyler's mechanics: a natural selective tension that makes him susceptible to melancholy and anger. But something bright comes this way.

"I'll stay the night."

"And the night after?"

"And the night after."

Gerbera daisies dot Tyler's apartment in varying stages of bloom; like an ode Nietzsche, he was constantly reminded by these of a promise that _the world awaits like a garden_. It is too early for them to be awake when the sun starts to rise and somewhere, far to the east, neglect caters to the waves and stray plastic bags empty into the ocean. It feels like something close to home, and that's all they could ask for.


End file.
